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.

Volume 17, Issue 2

November 2020

On the intersection of fan studies and comics

studies: Contextualization and introduction

Sophie G. Einwächter,

Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

Vanessa Ossa,

University of Cologne, Germany/University of Amsterdam, The

Netherlands

Véronique Sina,

University of Mainz, Germany

Sven Stollfuß,

University of Leipzig, Germany

When in 2019, Donald Trump’s 2020 election campaign team appropriated a scene from

Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame (2019) to mock (or send a not-so-subtle threat to) those

managing the impeachment process, it was followed by enormous outrage online. The clip

shows a doctored version of supervillain Thanos’ finger-snap with the infinity gauntlet, with

Trump’s face superimposed on the antagonist’s head. The clip’s audio provides the line from

the film, ‘I’m inevitable,’ followed by a triumphant-looking Thanos/Trump snapping his

fingers; then the video cuts to a lineup of the impeachment managers. They seemingly

dissolve to ashes that are blown away by a gust of wind, accompanied by the eerie sound

familiar to those who have watched their favorite superheroes and heroines being killed off

in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (@TrumpWarRoom 2019).

It is quite typical of fans that they read their favorite texts in ways not originally

anticipated by their producers, or that they make antagonists their center of attention and

rehabilitate them through fanfiction or other means. So, while the Endgame appropriation

in and of itself could have been mistaken for fan cultural activity – and was clearly designed

to display pop-cultural expertise – its context, timing and message indicated otherwise.

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Not only did it escape the Trump campaign managers’ notice that the scene they

took from Endgame was followed by Thanos’ ultimate defeat (the powerful gauntlet had

been exchanged, rendering the finger snap ineffective). It also seemed shocking to many

fans that Trump would approve of a comparison that drew a parallel between him and the

Marvel supervillain. Comics author and Thanos creator Jim Starlin condemned the

appropriation via Instagram: ‘After my initial feeling of being violated, seeing that pompous

dang fool using my creation to stroke his infantile ego, it finally struck me that the leader of

my country and the free world actually enjoys comparing himself to a mass murderer. How

sick is that?’ (jimstarlin 2019, see also Einwächter 2020).

However, it seems the Trump campaign managers had not come up with the

comparison in the first place, but rather picked up the idea from Trump anti-fans and

subsequently tried to ‘own it.’ In a June 2018 episode of The Late Show With Stephen

Colbert, the show’s host referred to people who were comparing ‘Thanos to Trump in some

ways.’ In a discussion about the president with his guest Josh Brolin (who portrays the

Marvel supervillain on screen), the two agreed that what Trump and Thanos had in common

was a certain ‘callousness’ in their behavior. The segment became rather popular online

because it ended with Brolin reading several of President Trump’s tweets in the voice of the

iconic Marvel character – much to the amusement of host and audience.

The fact that the Trump/Thanos analogy became so popular it was picked up by the

re-election campaign is a good example of how much fandom and comics have left their

formerly ‘subcultural’ niches and become part of mainstream culture. It also illustrates that

an analysis of today’s transmedia landscape calls for interdisciplinary cooperation: While

investigating the cultural and discursive implications of Trump’s finger-snap video, we have

to consider (inter-)textual aspects; (fan-)cultural norms; modes of media production and

distribution; and platform logic. Our example attests to the fact that knowledge of comic

book villains (formerly considered ‘geek’) has become a discursive currency in mainstream

public discourse. Furthermore, it shows how authorities in power now mimic grassroots

appropriation practices which were formerly used only by those considered powerless.

The incident from 2019 is also a good example of (trans-)media matter that comics

studies and fan studies in particular might fruitfully investigate together: How would we be

able to understand the fans’ and creator’s outrage if we didn’t know about the source text

and its meaning, and how would we be able to interpret the adapted video and its

distribution if we didn’t know about fan cultural practices? An analysis of both the

appropriated material and the response it stimulated would benefit from both perspectives:

a more text-centric comics studies view and a more audience- or user-focused fan studies

perspective.

This Themed Section aims to bring these two perspectives together. Our experience

with institutions, publications and networking in our fields of study has shown that despite

their obvious overlaps, the connections between comics studies and fan studies have hardly

been explored so far. This seems striking considering how crucially comic book marketing

depends on loyal customers – especially fans – and the extent to which the ever-expanding

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franchises surrounding Marvel’s and DC’s comic worlds rely on user participation and

fandom.

Can we explain the difference and resulting demarcation between the two by noting

that comics studies focus primarily on the text while fan studies focus on recipients and

their practices instead? Or is the answer an institutional one? In Germany at least, comics

studies have strong roots in (comparative) literary studies, art history, and philology, while

fan studies are grounded in either media and cultural studies or in sociology, and focus on

individual and mass consumption practices or group phenomena.

This Themed Section of Participations presents interdisciplinary research that invites

readers to engage with the question of what distinguishes and what unites comics studies

and fan studies. Several of the articles featured here continue the fruitful and lively

discussions held at the 2019 comics/fandom workshop at Cologne University, which was co-

organized by two committees of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) – the

Committee for Comics Studies (AG Comicforschung) and the Committee for Fan and

Participation Studies (AG Partizipations- und Fanforschung).1

Fan Studies and Comics Studies: Points of Departure, Frictions, and Common

Ground

At first glance, the interconnection between comics studies and fan studies seems striking.

First of all, fan cultural practices are an integral part of comic book culture. Comic book

narratives are highly coded and often require specialized literacy as well as insider

knowledge, due to the long history of many popular comic book series (Pustz 1999, 110–56).

The materiality of the comic book invites readers and collectors to circulate, exchange, and

archive texts and images in the form of tangible objects (Brown 1997, 22–28; Brown 2001).

Specialized comic book stores and comic book conventions are important venues for

community building (Woo 2011; Bolling and Smith 2014; Gearino and Spurgeon 2017;

Hanna 2020).

What may differentiate comics from other fan objects is that printed letter pages

and editorials in comic books create opportunities for readers and producers to interact.

The approachability of industry players at conventions communicates the impression that

the barrier of entering the industry is rather low; also, many comic book artists claim to

come from fandom (Brown 2001; Perren and Felschow 2018). Following their example,

many fans produce their own comic books as part of their fan cultural practices.

Another commonality between comics studies and fan studies is that both have long

struggled with the stereotypes of the ‘cultural dupe’ or the ‘fan as fanatic.’ As Joli Jensen

very aptly put it in her 1992 study ‘Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of

Characterization,’ the widely-held understanding of fans at the time was that they were

‘obsessed individuals,’ potentially threatening loners, or part of ‘the hysterical crowd’

(Jensen 1992, 9) – an equally problematic, and in severe cases even deadly, phenomenon.

Early fan studies scholars (e.g. Jenkins 1992; Penley 1997; Bacon-Smith 1992) thus chose to

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highlight the semiotic productivity of fan cultures, and took their departure mostly from

ethnographic investigations of fan cultural practices that focused on fans of science fiction

and romance television series. As they investigated the social, meaning-making, and

educational qualities of fan engagement, they contradicted the fan cliché as it was

described in earlier journalistic and sociological accounts. This resulted in a wave of

scholarly contributions whose main aim was to rehabilitate certain kinds of audiences (see

also Gray et al. 2007 for their theorization of fan studies discursive ‘waves’).

Quite similarly, the ‘comic book nerd’ appears to be a culmination of the worst

stereotypes about fans: that they’re immature, fanatic and antisocial, and that their comic

books are infantile, silly commercial pulp (Lopes 2009, Woo 2018). This cliché, albeit

outdated, is still frequently on display and/or mocked in popular television shows such as

The Simpsons (Fox 1989–present) and The Big Bang Theory (CBS 2009–19) (Woo 2011;

Booth 2015, 75–100; Busse 2017, 187; Orme 2016).

For the longest time, comic books had a bad reputation because they were thought

to lack intellectual qualities and – even worse – to effectively contribute to the decline in

children’s literacy (Brown 1997, 18–22; Lopes 2009. For an overview of the supposed

dangers of comics for girls, see Gibson 2015, 71–79). As a consequence of this

stigmatization, comic book readers have preferred to stay in closed groups (Pustz 1999, 6).

In the last three decades, however, as comic books found their way into libraries and

bookstores, genres other than the mainstream superhero narratives have come more into

focus (Beaty 2010). One significant event that led to the rise of public awareness of the

graphic novel was certainly the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize to Art Spiegelman’s Maus in

1992. Another significant change in the public perception of comic books came with the

growing prominence of Japanese manga in Western cultures (Lopes 2009, 152–57). These

too are often sold in bookshops instead of specialized comic book stores and are received

more as literature than as pulp. Parallel to these developments on the comic book market,

comics studies emerged as an academic discipline.

In his contribution to this Themed Section, ‘Shared Trajectories and “Figures of the

Fan Audience” in Comics studies and fan studies: Arrested development … or transmedial

developments?,’ Matt Hills suggests that it is precisely the closeness between comics

studies and fan studies on the one hand, and the culturally precarious tradition of comic

books on the other hand, that have been hindering stronger collaboration between the two

disciplines. Hills argues that, in an attempt to legitimize comic books as literature or art, and

to rid itself of the unwanted association with the ‘comic book nerd,’ comics studies

developed a different focus from fan studies.

Indeed, although many historic and industry-oriented comic book studies include

observations about the relationship between readers and producers, as well as descriptions

of typical fan spaces and comic book distribution modalities, studies that explicitly address

comic book fans remain few and far between (notable exemptions are Pustz’s Comic Book

Culture. Fanboys and True Believers [1999], Schelly’s The Golden Age of Comic Book Fandom

[1999] and Brown’s Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans [2001]). Hills

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further connects the question about fan studies as a (neglected) part of comics studies to

his earlier discussions of scholarly identity. In particular, he describes the hybrid identity of

‘aca-fans’ who are often thought to lack ‘proper distance’ to the objects they study (Hills

2012). He concludes, however, that in the age of increasing transmediatization, it is difficult

to uphold a notion of medium specific fandom. This poses new challenges to comics and fan

studies while it harbors a potential for new synergies.

From Niche to Mainstream: Comics Franchises

As Hills suggests (and our introductory example of the presidential re-election campaign

video confirms this observation), comic book narratives are increasingly becoming part of a

mainstream cultural repertoire that is easily accessible, even if one has never read a single

comic book. One aspect of this development is the distribution of knowledge about comic

book characters through wikis or commentaries on video platforms; another is the

popularity of comic-based media franchises that dominate contemporary pop culture

(Perren and Felschow 2018). This becomes apparent in Liam Burke’s (2015) research, where

he describes people who self-identify as comic book fans without ever reading a comic (see

also Matt Hills’s article in this section). The comic-based superhero movies and TV shows

that became a phenomenon at the turn of the current century play a vital part in this

development. Early box office successes such as Marvel’s Spider-Man (2002–07) and X-Men

(2000–06)2 movie series and DC’s successful Batman trilogy (2005–12) paved the way for

transmedia franchises such as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (2008–present) and DC’s

Extended Universe (2012–present). Both include a wide range of media: animated and live-

action feature films, (partly) interconnected television shows, tie-in comic books, and other

media such as video games and webisodes. Comic conventions play an important role in this

transmedia cultural economy; they showcase new comic books and serve as platforms for

previewing new film and TV content (Bolling and Smith 2014; Gilbert 2018; Hanna 2020).

Uncertainty about economic performance, for the longest time a crucial aspect of the

cultural economy, no longer seems to haunt producers in this transmediatized franchise

economy. At the time of writing, Marvel’s feature film Avengers: Endgame holds the title as

the most successful box office hit of all time, with a global gross of $2,797,800,564

(boxofficemoji.com). However, the comic book transmedia machinery’s efficiency has also

been criticized for its all-too-successful creative resource management, as Aaron Taylor

(2014, 20–21) has noted:

The aim of this contemporary industrial practice is to harness and regulate the

creative energies of both film-makers and fans. In short, blockbuster

transmediality is not only indicative of the economics of postcinematic

adaptation, but it also exemplifies a corporate strategy that aims for the

strategic co-option of potentially unruly niche audiences. The transmedia

circulation of comic properties thus bespeaks a fundamental ambivalence

involving the use-value of postcinematic adaptations in the age of new media:

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while they serve as catalyzers for fannish mechanisms of reply, they

simultaneously serve as dominant channels by which the culture industry co-

opts and regulates subcultural energies.

Despite their ‘postcinematic’ logics, it remains important that these blockbuster franchises

originate from comic books, since the comic book industry, with its fast and relatively cheap

production circle, often serves as a cultural testing ground for future media trends (Jenkins

2006). Comic conventions – especially San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) with its closeness to

Hollywood – are crucial connectors between fans and the industry. This is where, ideally,

community membership and consumption interest ‘collude in the fan identity’ (Gilbert

2018, 321).

Gendered Demarcations Within Comics/Fandom

It is important to note that in the industry’s eyes, a ‘good fan’ (Gilbert 2018, 320) is mainly a

good consumer, one who collects comic books, follows expanded storylines over multiple

comic book series, writes letters (providing product feedback) to the publishers, and attends

social meetings in places of commerce.

However, the line between wanted and unwanted forms of fandom seems to be

economic as well as gendered. Subversive and transformative fan practices such as the

production of fan art and fanfiction – and the gift culture that often underlies them – differ

significantly from those of the more consumption-oriented comic book or ‘geek’ culture. In

the past, the majority of comic book fans were thought to be male (Brown 2001, 62). But

independent of demographic numbers which suggest that women are indeed increasingly

represented among comic fans, comic book fans remain strongly coded as male (Orme

2016). This gender bias positions comic book fandom relatively high within the cultural

hierarchy of fan practices, as Busse (2017) suggests. Citing a number of examples from TV

representations of fans, she concludes that in popular narratives, male fanboys grow ‘from

pimply, geeky parental basement dwellers into heroes (or, translated into nonfictional

examples, into producers and successful academics)’ while ‘the fate of the fangirl is more

complicated’ (Busse 2017, 188).

Busse also refers to an underlying fan cultural differentiation between affirmational

and transformational fans, the affirmational ‘playing within the source text’s boundaries by

analyzing, illustrating collecting and cosplaying’ while transformational fans bring their ‘own

ideas, relationships, and […] characters’ into their practices (188, referring to a blog by

obsession_inc). She observes that ‘these two forms of fan interaction are also heavily

gendered’ (189). It has often been noted that, within industrial hierarchies and popular

narratives, the practices and behavior of female fans are valued less, and that the growing

presence of female fans in places such as comic conventions might even cause conflicts (see

Busker 2013; Hanna 2020). Benjamin Woo warns us, however, that the fact that

‘mainstream media have now begun celebrating the male, geeky fan as the ideal consuming

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subject of contemporary transmedia franchises’ (2018, 17) may have prompted us to draw

skewed conclusions:

academic efforts to ‘twist the stick in the other direction’ perhaps

inadvertently reified distinctions among fan practices into an almost

ontological divide: good, transformational, and therefore resistive fans who are

mostly women, on the one hand; bad, affirmational, and therefore complicit

fans who are mostly men, on the other. (Woo 2018, 17)

This is an important point. Without accusing anyone of complicity or making moral

judgments, we consider it crucial to stress that the underrepresentation of female (or queer,

we might add: in fact, any marginalized) perspectives in mainstream media is still a reality.

Busse (2017, 189) confirms that beyond the

‘men collect and women connect’ fan gender stereotype, there may be deeper

reasons as to why women are more eager to change the existing media

narratives we are offered. After all, most TV programs, especially science

fiction and crime dramas, are geared at the eighteen- to thirty-five-year-old

white male heterosexual demographic. (Busse 2017, 189)

This observation seems even more apt in the context of the traditional comic book

readership, since exclusive distribution through specialized comic book stores had provided

the publishers with a very specific target audience (Perren and Felschow 2018). Woo (2011)

and Swafford (2012) describe how comic book stores used to function as community

gatekeepers that prevented female fans from joining.

However, the current popularity of comic book narratives, new distribution channels

such as online platforms, and the growing relevance of female customers for comic book

stores are beginning to weaken male dominance in comic book fandom; big comic

conventions in New York and San Diego even report an even number of female and male

attendees (Asselin 2015; Orme 2016; Pustz 2017). Yet, as Susan Scott (2019) argues in Fake

Geek Girls. Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry, the growing influence of

(formerly) marginalized audience groups creates conflicts between fans and the media

industry, and also along gender lines in fan groups. Famous pop cultural examples in these

‘cultural wars’ include entire franchises such as the latest additions to the Star Wars saga, as

well as remakes and continuations of successful blockbuster movies and video games like

the all-female Ghostbusters (2016) and The Last of Us Part II (2020) (see also Woo 2018). All

these examples experienced public backlash against their integration of female protagonists

and/or their portrayal of characters from historically marginalized groups. In comic book

culture, a conservative backlash against the increased integration of female, ethnically

diverse, and queer characters in Marvel comic books found expression in the hashtag

#comicsgate. Several incidents of online harassment and calls for boycotts created open

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conflicts amongst fans, amongst artists, and between fans and the industry (Einwächter and

Ossa 2021).

The above-mentioned power divide along gender lines is another potential key to

understanding the distance between fan and comics studies. While comics studies might

have neglected the analysis of fannish behavior in order to elevate and legitimize the

medium’s reputation, fan studies may indeed have foregrounded subversive or

transformational fan cultures, fan activism and cultural spaces for traditionally marginalized

groups. John Fiske (2003, 30) made it quite clear that for the longest time, fandom was

associated with cultural forms that the dominant value system denigrates –

pop music, romance novels, comics, Hollywood mass-appeal stars (sport,

probably because of its appeal to masculinity, is an exception). It is thus

associated with the cultural tastes of subordinated formations of the people,

particularly with those disempowered by any combination of gender, age, class

and race.

Harmonious interactions between comic books readers and creators – described by Jeffrey

Brown (2001, 11) as ‘potentially collaborative and mutually satisfying’ – and a

predominantly male fan base do not fit easily into this trajectory. Quite in accordance with

observations in our fields of study, fan studies (with a considerable focus on fanfiction)

often seem to have a large female base, whereas comics studies seem to be frequented

more often by male scholars, at least in Germany (Sina 2020, 2021). We assume that there

are indeed conflicts and even acts of subversive appropriation in male fan’ practices. But, as

Brown remarked in 2001 (and this still holds true), much more empirical work is needed for

us to understand how male fans’ practices and popular, patriarchal media relate to one

another.

Comics/Fandom: A Themed Section

The articles in this Themed Section, like Matt Hills’s contribution (which we discussed and

‘teased’ earlier on), relate to several of the arguments that we address in this introduction.

They cover everything from the comic book industry-centric creation of the ‘good fan’

(Brinker), to new forms of collaboration between fans and the industry (Lamerichs), the

playful reframing of comic book material by fans and academics (Andersen and Jensen), and

industry-independent or even resistive fandoms (Hart; Hülsmann; and Thelen).

The obvious, though still often neglected, interconnection of comics studies and fan

studies as addressed in the following articles both provides us with an opportunity and

presents us with the challenge of combining approaches from sociology, audience studies,

industry and production studies, literary studies, and historical research. The methodologies

used thus range from classical textual analysis and close readings to discourse analysis,

qualitative interviews and participant observations.

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‘Tintin and the adventure of transformative and critical fandom’ by Tem Frank

Andersen and Thessa Jensen engages with the notion of academic fandom, comparing how

scholars and fans engage with The Adventures of Tintin comic books in different ways.

Expanding on Roland Barthes’s and John Fiske’s concept of writerly, readerly, and producerly

texts, they compare transformative elements in academic writing, fan-made albums on

specific fan sites, fanworks on common fan platforms such as Archiveofourown.org, and

images on non-fan-specific sites such as Instagram and Pinterest. The article questions the

extent to which elements of the academic discourse on racial stereotypes in The Adventures

of Tintin have been transferred into fan-made artefacts.

Nicolle Lamerichs advances an argument similar to Hills’s conclusion that

transmediatization brings the subject of comics studies and fan studies even closer together.

Her article ‘Scrolling, swiping, selling: Understanding Webtoons and the data-driven

participatory culture around comics’ analyzes how the form, social meaning, technology,

and economics of comic books are increasingly influenced by digital formats and the

platformization of the internet. Lamerichs discusses virtual spaces for digital comics such as

Webtoons, and considers new opportunities for pushing into the industry via crowdfunding

on platforms such as Patreon, Kickstarter and Kofi. The possibility of commenting on and

even financing individual comic books turns audiences into investors and co-creators.

Contrary to a common notion in classical fan studies, Lamerichs (p. 215) argues that

‘[f]andom is not counter-cultural, subversive, or detached from the creative industries, but

an integral part of it.’

One prominent example of the incorporation of more female protagonists and

heroes from traditionally marginalized groups into Marvel comic books is Ms. Marvel.

Danielle Hart’s article ‘“A War for a Better Tomorrow”: Ms. Marvel fanworks as protest art’

discusses Ms. Marvel as the first South Asian American Muslim superhero and the main

protagonist in a Marvel comic book series. Hart shows how the Ms. Marvel comic books

encourage political engagement or activism among their readership and how Ms. Marvel

fans used their favorite character to protest against the so-called ‘Muslim ban’ that was

initiated by the Trump administration in 2016. Hart demonstrates, on the one hand, the

classical appropriation of Ms. Marvel to transmit a political message and, on the other hand,

the embrace of a political stance that was already initiated by the comic books.

The close collaborative relationship between Marvel comic book producers and

readers is in keeping with a long tradition. Felix Brinker argues in ‘Reader mobilization and

the courting of fannish consumption practices in 1970s Marvel Superhero comic books’ that

this relationship between comic book producers and readers was established during the

1970s, when comic books turned from being a mainstream cultural commodity to a product

for a specialized fan audience. Brinker shows how the seriality, ‘ergodicity,’ and sociability of

comic books as periodic media encouraged fannish modes of interaction with comic books.

His article investigates the roles of paratextual content in comic books such as

advertisements, value stamps, editorial content, and letter pages.

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In contrast to Brinker’s analysis of fannish behavior that was explicitly encouraged by

Marvel, Katharina Hülsmann’s ‘Navigating the visibility and spreadability of the Japanese fan

comic – Protective practices in the dōjinshi community’ describes Japanese fan practices

that are inspired by Western media franchises. Through participant observation and

ethnographic interviews, Hülsmann gains insight into a fan community that is anxious to

keep its activities hidden since its members fear a negative response from global copyright

holders like Marvel. Hülsmann observes and describes a number of protective practices,

from websites that post only in Japanese, to password protection and secret codes for fan

art and fanfiction, to the publication of fan artefacts exclusively on paper.

The second article on Japanese fan culture in this volume, ‘Transnational comic

franchise tourism and fan cultural capital: Japanese Attack on Titan Fans traveling to

Germany’ by Timo Thelen, describes fan practices that work mostly independently of official

producers. Thelen analyzes a surprising case of fan pilgrimage in which fans of Attack on

Titan made a connection between the Japanese manga’s setting and the German town of

Nördlingen (based on a rather superficial resemblance), turning Nördlingen into a tourist

attraction. Drawing on Azuma’s concept of the database, Thelen investigates fans’

justification of their fascination with the town, arguing that their pilgrimage there produces

social capital in the fan community.

Biographical Notes:

Sophie G. Einwächter is currently a visiting professor in the Media Studies department of

Ruhr-University Bochum and the former managing editor of the OA journal

MEDIENwissenschaft: Rezensionen/Reviews. Her PhD on the economic implications of fan

culture within a cultural industries context was published online/OA in 2014 as

Transformationen von Fankultur. Organisatorische und ökonomische Konsequenzen globaler

Vernetzung. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the European Network for

Cinema and Media Studies (NECS, 2012-2018) and founded the NECS Fan Studies work

group. Her work concentrates on fan and scholarly cultures, web-based ethnography, and

the female body in popular media. Contact: sophie.einwaechter@ruhr-uni-bochum.de.

Vanessa Ossa is a Media Studies scholar at the University of Cologne and at the University of

Amsterdam. In 2019, she concluded her PhD in Media Studies at the Collective Research

Center Threatened Orders – Societies Under Stress at the University of Tuebingen,

Germany. Her research areas include Comics Studies, Fan Studies, transmedia storytelling,

and post-9/11 representations of conflict. Contact: vanessa.ossa@uni-koeln.de.

Véronique Sina is a Media Studies scholar at the University of Mainz and specializes in

Gender and Queer Studies, Intersectionality, Intermediality, Comics Studies, Identity Studies

and Jewish Visual Culture Studies. She received her PhD in Media Studies in June 2015 at

Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. She is Co-Founder and Chairwoman of the Committee

for Comics Studies (AG Comicforschung) of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM),

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former Vice President of the German Society for Comics Studies (2018-2020) and Co-Editor

of the international book series COMICSTUDIEN (de Gruyter). Contact: vsina@uni-mainz.de.

Sven Stollfuß is an Assistant Professor for Digital Media Culture in the University of Leipzig’s

Institute of Communication and Media Studies. He received his PhD in Media Studies in

December 2012 from Philipps–Universität Marburg, Germany. His research areas are social

media, social TV, theory of television and digital media, and platformization of media

cultural production. Contact: sven.stollfuss@uni-leipzig.de.

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank the editors of Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception

Studies for their trust, and Martin Barker in particular for his patience and support.

Moreover, we are most grateful to the additional reviewers: Shane Denson, Tim Glaser,

Thessa Jensen, Anne Jerslev, Jennifer Neidhardt, Elisabeth Scherer, Mara Stuhlfauth-Trabert,

and Lukas Wilde, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References: @TrumpWarRoom. 2019, 10.12.2019. ‘House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they

want. President Trump’s re-election is inevitable.’ Twitter.com. Accessed October 13, 2020.

https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1204503645607333888?=2010.12.2019.

Asselin, Janelle. 2015. ‘For Second Year in a Row, Female Readers Are a Growing Market.’

Comicsalliance.com. Accessed October 13, 2020. https://comicsalliance.com/female-readers-

growing-market/.

Bacon-Smith, Camille. 1992. Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular

Myth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Beaty, Bart. 2010. ‘The Recession and the American Comic Book Industry: From Inelastic Cultural

Good to Economic Integration.’ Popular Communication 8 (3): 203–07.

Bolling, Ben, and Matthew J. Smith. 2014. It Happens at Comic-Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop

Culture Phenomenon. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers.

Booth, Paul. 2015. Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age. Iowa City:

University of Iowa Press.

Boxofficemojo.com. ‘All-Time Charts.’ Accessed October 13, 2020.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/charts/overall/?area=XWW.

Brown, Jeffrey A. 1997. ‘Comic Book Fandom and Cultural Capital.’ Journal of Popular Culture 30 (4):

13–31.

Brown, Jeffrey A. 2001. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans. Studies in Popular

Culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Burke, Liam P. 2015. The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre.

Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Busker, Rebecca Lucy. 2013. ‘Fandom and Male Privilege: Seven Years Later.’ Transformative Works

and Cultures 13: https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2013.0473.

Busse, Kristina. 2017. Framing Fan Fiction: Literary and Social Practices in Fan Fiction Communities.

Chicago: University of Iowa Press.

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Click, Melissa A., and Suzanne Scott, eds. 2018. The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. New

York/London: Routledge.

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Notes: 1 For information regarding the committees’ activities and members, see: https://agcomic.net/;

https://partizipafans.wordpress.com/. 2 Several additional Spiderman and X-Men movies have been released. Though we cite only the first

trilogy since it sparked the renewed superhero boom, one could easily cite both as 2000–present or

2002–present.